Is Social Commerce Dead? Hardly

April 11, 2011

Recently, reports from analysts like Forrester Research and Millward Brown have said that Facebook (and by implication, other social network sites) is not driving serious sales increases. The reports include reports from several companies who’ve tried and failed to get any significant gain from social networking in terms of increased sales.

Facebook has issued a rebuttal in the form of new data showing companies that use the network correctly are reaping large benefit. It’s a question of how those companies are using the social network to drive sales, rather than an issue of just the fact that they are using it in an attempt.

For instance, Ticketmaster is showing significant gains thanks to just having fans sharing events via Facebook. They estimate that each such share results in an average of $5.30 in ticket sales. This means that a significant percentage of every person sharing an event is likely to have someone on their network buy a ticket thanks to the share. Another ticket seller, Eventbrite, shows similar gains.

Others are also seeing increases by utilizing Facebook in a way that suits their business model. Several new payment systems that work through Facebook, such as Payvment, Beetailer and others, are allowing Facebook-enabled shopping carts to integrate with an ecommerce website.

The big boys aren’t losing out either. Amazon and eBay have been integrating Facebook into their sites to help users share products with one another in a way that allows easy purchase.

Facebook is just one social platform. Plenty of others are also vying for a position in the space and showing innovative ways of accommodating sales through their systems.